Sesame Street - Indian Guru 1-20 (Spanish version)

[MasterEiji]

imagine the effort to make just this short clip... "morphing" was still about 15 years away.. so they had to do this the HARD way.. by hand..

[auntydale]

When I first started high school Spanish, I impressed my classmates because I already knew how to count to 20- until they found out it was because of Sesame Street. They thought that, at 17 years of age, I still watched it. I couldn't believe that they didn't remember what they learned from SS.

I also knew beso, agua, abierto and cerrado. Remember that animated box?

[dnakamatsu]

I can still count to 20 en espanol today because of this clip!  Haha!

[ViperSRTnACR]

......I don't understand Spanish, LoL

[liability18]

I still cannot count to 20 in Spanish without the help of this catchy tune.

[theOlLineRebel]

I just realized recently - why would 1 use Indian-type style with Spanish???? (No, I never saw anything of this but Spanish - figured it was to teach a bit of Spanish with counting.)

[milovy]

I remember the Spanish version of this very well - the English one not so much. I would try to count along but by the time they got to 16 (diez y seis) I'd get all confused because they were saying it so fast.

Back in the '60s when they played Spanish clips along with English ones, it was no big deal! It was considered educational enrichment for your kids. Now it's an idiotic political issue. God forbid we teach our kids another language.

[theOlLineRebel]

It is political, because why didn't they have some Indian version? Why not even French (which used to be the language everyone learned)? Why not German? Why not Japanese? Generally all you heard on SS was Spanish as the alternate. There's obviously a reason. I didn't realize it at the time.

[milovy]

Not political at all; Spanish was simply the second most widely spoken language in the United States - and still is today.  They were trying to serve their audience of Spanish-speaking toddlers.

By "idiotic political issue" I mean that people are annoyed that Spanish has always been the second most widely spoken language in North America.

[theOlLineRebel]

In North America? Not French? What about all our native French Canadiennes? Not saying Spanish can't have been, but amongst "unofficial" official languages of the natives, certainly English is followed by French.

[milovy]

Not even close. In 2000, the top languages in the U.S. were these:

# English - 215 million

# Spanish - 28 million

# Chinese languages - 2.0 million + (mostly Cantonese speakers, with a growing group of Mandarin speakers)

# French - 1.6 million

In 1969, when Sesame Street debuted, these relative percentages were probably similar, except for maybe Chinese was less common.

As for French Canada, Quebec has something like 6 million speakers today so... sorry, not even close.

[milovy]

adding that these figures are for U.S... I don't believe Sesame Street aired in Mexico and Canada, it was an American show for American audiences.

[AllRequired]

Au contraire, Sesame Street DID air in Canada, with French-language segments and Canadian-produced segments (Buffy Sainte Marie count for anything?).

[odelfin12]

@milovy Sesame Street did air in Mexico, still does. The name in Spanish is "Plaza Sésamo". The show in Mexico has been adapted to the Mexican audiences, but it does present some material from the American show, including segments in English, plus some portions on indigenous languages.

[tsteinfeld]

Yes (sigh), I totally agree.

I was fortunate enough to be able to see SS three times a day (twice on local PBS and once on the Canadian station--we were within range, in Central NYS, if the weather was just right), and this brilliant show helped inspire me to learn more about the world--including other languages. Now, in modern America, that's a bad thing.

Shameful. Absolutely shameful.

[CygnusRoc]

Ambitious I mean

[d72jjpilc]

I remember this - both English and Spanish! However, because it was a Hindi guru doing the counting, maybe they could have though of a Hindi version as well! The numbers in Hindi are as follows (1 to 10): ek, do, tin, chwar, panj, chai, sat, at, nav, das Because Hindi, like English and Spanish, is an Indo-European language, there is some degree of similarity in the numbers. Yes, I'm interested in languages very much!

[CygnusRoc]

That would have been a little ambitions even for Sesame Street.

[uofmrules1]

I'm personally surprised they didn't make a french version of this for the Canadian SS.

[mstatz]

They only made English and Spanish versions of Sesame Street cartoons back then.

[splotchwork5000]

never knew or even gave it the though of this clip having the spanish soundtrack...intresting.

[TriangleWitch]

I remember both versions. but I remember there was another version too, where it was an Indian deity, insted of the guru doing the counting.

[scootermannn]

this song single handed taught how to count from 1 to 20 in Spanish...and I haven't learned a single thing more. Doh!

[isidro7667]

As a child watching this version I associated the Spanish language being spoken with the Indian motifs. So up until the time I was ten or so I assumed that the language I heard in this animation was the language spoken in India! I'm surpirsed that Jim Henson et. al. didn't see that possibility coming!

[michigandon]

isidro7667 you just got me to thinking...wonder how exactly one *does* count from 1 to 20 in Hindi, and could it even be done to this tune?

[isidro7667]

Can't say I know how to count in Hindu, but considering what a chore it was for this vocalist to fit the Spanish numerals into the song structure, I imagine doing it with Hindu numerals would be at least as difficult, if not more so!

[dnm728]

Listen closely - every time the singer says "nueve" it sounds like "noi-vay."

[QBCNetwork]

Finally the Spanish version!

[mstatz]

If you buy the "Sesame Street: old school" DVD, you will see both videos (English & Spanish) back to back on one of the episodes.

[Nornegest]

I've been searching for this version! Finally!

Many thanks -- or should I say muchos gracias? -- for uploading!

[Juliefan21]

What's that Muppet sketch shown at the beginning of this video?